The Details:
The Sons of Africans: an Essay on Freedom, with Observations on the Origin of Slavery. Boston: African Society, 1808. Gift of the Boston Athenaeum, 1834. [catalog record]
Christopher Columbus Baldwin, “Catalogue of Pamphlets Received of the Boston Atheneum [sic] by the American Antiquarian Society.” January 23, 1834. AAS Archives. [catalog record]
The Stories:
During his tenure as AAS librarian, Baldwin distinguished himself as a master acquisitor. For example, he convinced the Boston Athenaeum librarian to promise the Society its pick of the Athenaeum’s duplicate pamphlets. In the end, he brought away some 466 pamphlets for the Society. These he inventoried in an 1834 catalogue. One item that he listed was this abolitionist pamphlet, written by an unidentified member of Boston’s African Society, founded in 1796 by Boston’s free African-American community.
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Catalogue in Case 6 and Banneker Almanac in Floor case
